A piece from here a piece from there. I pull the parts together where, the facts I've found and those still gone are segments searched and sought so long. Together joined and linked I find, small questions answered in my mind. Assembling self and as I go, not really half, but never whole.

Assembling Self

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Adoptees - Healing and Empowerment

In the Quiet of my soul

In the quiet of my soul there dwells, a story that is left to tell.
A life that lives beneath, so still awaiting its release.
Hiding there for many years beneath the layers of my fears.
Afraid to recognize the pain not knowing where to lay the blame.
Tucked away, I feign a smile.
But the pressure grows and all the while.
I dream one day, we'll make them see this burdensome road, this strange journey.
For if our voices join together ceasing not, nor quitting ever.
I believe united we'll reclaim the loss of histories and names.
And, that's enough until the time we'll change their hearts, transform all minds.
So cease not in this quest for truth nor give up on your search for proof.
What we're told that matters not can't be ignored, nor be forgot.
I pray for days and nights sometimes and probably 'til the end of time.
That relief is somewhere close in sight so I can lay to rest this fight.
Returning to truth and honesty at last our spirits will be set free.
And reaching out we'll heal all those lost and lonely wounded souls.

I've been told I'm consumed and obsessed with adoption. That, I am an angry adoptee. That I need to get over adoption as everyone has issues them from life experiences and to just leave it all in the past. The problem is that being adopted can not all be in the past. It it is very much a part of adoptees in the present and future too. Just like you can't be unborn, you can't be unadopted. Our pasts as children, the people who influenced our lives growing up, the genes and biological we come from, are very much a part of our now.

People every day talk about the circumstances and situations that have shaped and are molding their lives. Just scroll through Facebook (as we almost all do ;) ) hundreds are discussing and sharing about loved ones who are gone, posting pics from childhood, High School, college, weddings, it runs the gamut from A-Z. If we could just put everything in the past then there would be no wonderful memories and reunions! But, unfortunately with the good parts of our past come the difficult ones too.

Recently, I read someone who is not adopted comment on how much someone thinks about adoption and the hurt and pain that it brings up. And how it's easy not to think about something you "just don't think about it". And then this person goes on to list every wrong someone has done them over the last twenty plus years. Ummmm, a little (understatement) contradictory?

For many adoptees, we've had decades of bottled up, unidentified, and confusing, bewilderment we have felt without anywhere safe to express it. Misunderstood and perplexed because the knowledge of where we came from, the very foundation or our lives is gone, and we are told to be happy and bury the underlying despair and sadness we feel and have felt. For us it's like opening an unread book and beginning on chapter four, and the previous chapters we are not allowed to have. It will never be a complete story, and that's what adoptees deal with, incomplete lives.

For adoptees there seems to be different rules when it comes to reactions and emotions about being adopted that we are required to adhere to. The term "victim mentality" gets thrown about a lot. Many of us talk about it because there have been no guide books or mentors, no one who understood us and could help us, and instead it became even more confusing when our questions and emotions were dismissed and labeled wrong. And many, many of us, speak continually and publicly in tireless efforts to change the system of adoption and educate the world as to what these changes can, should, and need to be.

There is a difference in being angry about something, and being an angry person. There is a difference in speaking about something to vent, be understood, and supported, and allowing yourself to become a victim because of it. There is a HUGE difference in writing, speaking, sharing, and encouraging others to do the same about adoption, because there is power in numbers, and there is empowerment for individuals.

2 comments:

You are obsessed with adoption? Welcome to the club! you wrote: "That I need to get over adoption as everyone has issues them from life experiences and to just leave it all in the past."

We first mothers involved in reform hear that all the time. So it goes. At this point, I let it fall from my back like water off a duck. Do they tell people who are involved in saving the planet that they need to get over it and move on? Move on to what? The planet it going down the tubes and you and I will always be "involved" in adoption.

At the same time, we have lives, go to the movies, take up our outside interests. I wish those people would truly look at what they are saying, They just don't want to understand the truth of our lives.